Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin apologized for keeping his recent hospitalization hidden from the White House and the American people.

"We did not handle this right. I did not handle this right," he told reporters Thursday in his first news conference since his secret hospitalization and since the deadly drone attack in Jordan that killed three American soldiers. 

He said he was proud of the work the Defense Department has done, "but we fell short on this one," and he added he apologized directly to President Biden, who, he said received his apology with the "grace and warm heart that anyone who knows President Biden would expect." He also said he never directed any of his staff to hide his hospitalization. 

Austin, who said he is still experiencing some leg pain and is for now using a golf cart to move around inside  the Pentagon, said that his prostate cancer diagnosis "was a gut punch." "The news shook me, and I know that it shakes so many others, especially in the Black community," he admitted to reporters.